So, since I haven’t been able to get internet access for awhile, I could tell you about our adventures wandering around Kiev, or our 15 hour train ride or our lovely new facilitator and all of our running around in Donetsk. OR, I could tell you about how we meet Ilya and Lena… those are Reed and Scarlett’s real, Ukrainian names, which I feel comfortable sharing, now that we just wait on some paperwork and a court date. I think I know which one of those options you all will pick.

When we first got to the orphanage, we sat down with the deputy director of the orphanage, introduced ourselves and told her why we want to adopt (which I should mentioned is the edited for Ukrainians version). Then, she read through their entire file. The surprise was… that thing I was worried about in Lena’s file from our SDA appointment… not in this file. There was something new in her file which I will have to research, as I have never heard of. According to their files, both of them are very healthy. We got more of Ilya’s history… we just got a bit of Lena’s and hope to see if they can tell us anymore.

One of the most interesting parts of Ilya’s history was that he has a great-grandmother who visits him and has been desperately praying for a family for him. She is very old and has no means to take care of him, but she loves him. To quote the deputy director, God answered her prayers. I really hope that we have a chance to meet her.

After they finished all of the histories, the deputy director went out and asked someone to bring them in. A few minutes later, the door opens and in comes Lena. She was obviously startled by all of these people (us, the deputy director, our facilitator, and a local social worker), sitting around, watching her. When I said her name, she walked right over to me and stood at my legs, waiting for me to pick her up.

Then, Ilya came in. He was so scared. His head was tucked down, he ran over to the social worker for a minute and then he came to Aaron when Aaron went over to him. He let Aaron hold him, but he was obviously terrified of these two people here to see him. He also seemed tired (it was their naptime).

We brought out the camera to ask Sasha, our facilitator to take a photo of all of us. She took a couple and told me to look at them. Well, apparently, Miss Lena is a little ham. She got so excited to see her photo on the little screen. She would point to her photo, point to her self, point to Ilya’s photo, point to Ilya, point to one of us in the photo, point to one of us. By the end of our short visit, we had her calling herself and Ilya by name. I didn’t feel comfortable asking her to call us anything in front of the deputy director and social worker. Ilya smiled when he saw himself on camera and when Lena pointed at him and said “Ilya”. But that was the most we got out of him.

At the end of our short visit, the deputy director asked Ilya if he liked his “mama” and “papa” and he said yes! He was obviously very scared and tired, but I am glad he said that he liked us.

It is a good thing that Ilya is a bit scared. He obviously likes the deputy director a lot and it is good to see that kind of attachment. Personality wise, I totally expected the opposite, even our facilitator who has met them both was expecting the opposite responses from them. She said before we went, “Ilya is very friendly. He will come up to you and say “Where have you been the last three years? Mama and papa, I have been waiting for you.”

I will also tell you, Ilya seems gigantic to me. Lena is small, but she is around what I was expecting. I am not sure that the 3T clothes I brought for Ilya will fit him!

I am excited to spend time with them tomorrow, without all of the other people around. Sasha told us to bring toys, but especially bring snacks. That is the way to win their hearts.

We had our SDA appointment. It was nothing like I expected… much more relaxed than I expected. The first thing that the girl asked me was how old I was, when I told her, she laughed and said that she was the same age and couldn’t imagine having children. But, she was just curious!

Everything with Reed is as expected. He has no siblings and was born to a single mother.

Scarlett’s referral was a bit bumpier. She has two siblings. But, the lady doing our referral pulled it up on the computer and one was adopted by an American family and the second is in Ukrainian foster care. So, neither are available for adoption (this is a good thing for us!). We also found our that her special need is more severe than we thought. We are still trying to process what that means and doing research to understand it. If you happen to know what that special need is, please don’t post about it in the comments. You can email me if you want to talk to us about it or have something to share.

Please pray for Scarlett and us as we process this.

We will be traveling to their region tomorrow night and hope to meet them Wednesday or Thursday.